SpeakNGI.eu – Citizen-driven open consultation on Next Generation Internet

Project Overview

The envisaged Next Generation Internet (NGI) flagship being developed within the EU will introduce an internet for the people to help evolve from today’s internet, which is primitive, fragmented, with security/privacy concerns and a concentration of power, towards a more inclusive one demonstrating a level playing field for participation. The SpeakNGI.eu project was one of the three projects selected in the Horizon 2020 (H2020) call entitled ICT-41-2017: Next Generation Internet (NGI), in which three coordination action projects were selected to assist in the mobilisation of the European NGI communities and shaping of an NGI flagship being designed for Framework Programme 9 (FP9), the successor of H2020.

In the ICT-41-2017 call text, the three coverage areas for the NGI projects were: a) Identification of research topics; b) Dynamic and continuous consultation; and c) A programme shape for of a Next Generation Internet initiative. SpeakNGI.eu is the successful pathfinder project addressing b) Dynamic and continuous consultation. SpeakNGI.eu will work closely with the other involved pathfinder projects in the NGI ecosystem to ensure fruitful cooperation in the gathering of research and innovation topics and shaping of the NGI programme of activities, along with the established consultation processes that will run on the SpeakNGI.eu consultation platform, to fully support the establishment of a highly ambitious NGI Flagship toward the end of the Horizon 2020 programme and into FP9.

The project duration will run for a period of 18 months from 1st October, 2017 until 31st March, 2019.

Key Objectives

There are four core objectives:

Create a state-of-the-artconsultation platform to collate multiple open and dynamic consultation mechanisms for engagement with the NGI Stakeholder community;

Develop an open and extendable framework to structure and visualise the NGI stakeholder Knowledge Base;

Establish consultation mechanisms that target stakeholders to cover all necessary dimensions of European society;

Establish instruments to ensure sustainable access to the consultation process and knowledge for all relevant NGI stakeholder communities beyond the lifetime of the project.

Project Achievements

European Commission expects these NGI projects to work almost as one unit together and they are considered as a very important step toward the eventual establishment of a large scale EU NGI flagship in FP9, which is expected to run from 2021 to 2022. They consider the CSA projects as important “pathfinders” for the larger scale NGI initiative that will help them to consider already how the Internet will be perceived in 10 years from now, dealing with things like mounting concerns on security and privacy, radically new functionalities in 10 years, and for example, what users might possibly see in terms of social media in the future. We are delighted to be part of this longer term strategic action and contributing to the building of the EU NGI Flagship initiative”.